Measuring Digital Marketing Performance

GA4 + GTM + GSC • UTMs • Key Events

Jarrod Griffin

Cal Poly Pomona

2/9/2026

Welcome

  • Build reliable baseline tracking with GTM → GA4
  • Add GSC to bring organic search visibility into the same workflow
  • Standardize UTMs and measure outcomes with Key Events

Agenda

  • Introduction & Orientation (5 min)
  • Conceptual Framework: The Data Ecosystem (10 min)
  • Technical Implementation (25 min)
  • Search Visibility: Google Search Console (15 min)
  • Campaign Tracking: UTM Parameters (15 min)
  • Performance Measurement: Key Events (10 min)

Learning Outcomes:

After taking this workshop, participants should be able to:

  1. Explain how Google Analytics 4 (GA4), Google Tag Manager (GTM), and Google Search Console (GSC) work together to measure and improve digital marketing performance.
  2. Configure Google Analytics 4 (GA4) for a website using Google Tag Manager (GTM) to ensure reliable baseline tracking.
  3. Validate and troubleshoot GA4 event tracking using GTM Preview/Debug tools to confirm accurate event collection.
  1. Configure Google Search Console (GSC) and connect to GA4 to incorporate organic search query and landing-page performance data.
  2. Build standardized UTM parameters to track marketing campaigns consistently across channels and avoid attribution errors.
  3. Set up and interpret GA4 Key Events to measure marketing outcomes.

Before the workshop

Required

  • Create Google Account and Accept Invite to GTM/GA4.

Optional (used for deployment)

  • Download/Setup RStudio
  • Download/Setup Git
  • Access Starter Website Repo (Not yet created)

Introduction & Orientation

  • Who we are + what we’re building
  • The career “Why”: measurement → decisions
  • How we’ll work: build, publish, validate

Trinity of Data Collection

flowchart LR
  subgraph Site[Website / Quarto site]
    U[Users + content interactions]
  end

  GTM[[GTM<br/>The Brain]]
  GA4[(GA4<br/>The Database)]
  GSC[[GSC<br/>Search Health Check]]

  U -->|page_view + events| GTM
  GTM -->|sends events| GA4
  GSC -. monitors .-> Site
  GSC -->|queries • clicks • impressions| GA4

How they connect

  • Install GTM on the site (not GA4 code directly)
  • GTM sends events to GA4
  • Link GSC to GA4 for organic query + landing-page reporting

Technical Implementation (overview)

  • Step 1: The Setup . . .
  • Step 2: The Quarto Integration . . .
  • Step 3: The GA4 Configuration Tag . . .
  • Step 4: Publishing . . .
  • Step 5: Validation

Step 1 — The Setup

  • Create GA4 property
  • Create a GTM account + container
  • Confirm you have:
    • Admin access
    • GA4 Measurement ID (G-XXXXXXXX)
Visual placeholder: GA4 property + Data Stream screen

Step 2 — Quarto Integration

Action: copy the GTM snippets

  • <script> goes in Head
  • <noscript> goes in Body

include-in-header.html

include-before-body.html